An Egyptian Excursion - Day 2

Got up at 9am. Had a hard time trying to order breakfast from room service over the phone. So I decided to walk right up to the restaurant and tell the folks there. Turns out, the guy who I spoke to didn't know proper English and he was the only one in the restaurant at the time. He didn't look too happy taking my order, and I realised (later) that they always expect you to say Good Morning, How are you? or Salaam Maleikum before you start with your request/order, no matter how polite you are.

We ended up getting 3 breakfasts which were all essentially the same though (we'd asked for 3 different kinds specifically).


Met our driver Tiger (yes, that was his name.. no, no Woods). Got in the car and drove all the way to Ismailia. Saw a Chevy Cruze along the way. We stopped at a ferry point on the Suez canal, where the guards insisted on checking our passports no matter what Tiger told them. After some more Arabic banter with the security there (these were AK wielding policemen by the way), they even offered us tea. Point to note, tea here is mostly served as black tea. Not with milk, unless you ask for it.

From the ferry area, we could see the opposite bank of the Suez Canal - that was Sinai. They'd also told us not to take photos at that place (as if we were a security threat). Paused at a nearby shop to buy water on the walk back to the car. 2 little kittens were playing around the cooler there.

From there it was another 50km drive to the peace bridge. Mubarak peace bridge was built across the Suez Canal with help from Japan. No photos are allowed when you're crossing the bridge and either end of the bridge bristle with policemen armed to the teeth who'll check your passports and other ID. Crossed into Sinai, took a U-turn and headed back over the bridge. Then drove all the

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An Egyptian Excursion - Day 1

Started from home at 1am. We were on an Etihad flight. Service was just about OK for the self-touted "World's Leading airline". We were going via Abu dhabi, which turned out to be pretty small an airport for an oil rich state. Seating was extremely limited and people can be found lying down in the passages leading to the different gates when there are a large number of flights arriving or leaving at the same time.

On the plane to Cairo, the guy sitting next to me murmured Salam maleikum while he was taking his seat, at the time I thought he was addressing some friend of his across the aisle. Turned out that he'd directed his greeting at me. Started speaking with Mohammed (that was his name) and he told me he was working for an American oil firm in Pakistan as an engineer. Apparently he was on his way to meet his family in Cairo. He was an electrical engineer and we were soon power talking about M.H. Rashid's "Power electronics" (pity IGBTs, drives and choppers were the topics I made conversation on with a person from half the world away on the very next day that my exams were over), besides all about the places to see and how to greet people in Egypt and what not. Very friendly (and might I mention good looking) guy, he even offered to help us contact our driver if he didn't arrive at the airport in time to pick us up.

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